


beautiful

by kzumeknma (born_to_fly)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love, i love me some good angst ya know?, sorry boys i've done it again, vent fic? what's that? idk what you're talking about!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/born_to_fly/pseuds/kzumeknma
Summary: it's a truth universally known that Oikawa Tooru is, and always will be, beautiful.a Hanahaki AU





	beautiful

It’s a truth universally known that Oikawa Tooru was, is, and will always be, beautiful.

 

It’s an inappropriately gloomy day when Iwaizumi comes to that conclusion for the first time. Oikawa had smiled at him, one of those big, beautiful,  _ real  _ smiles that few people knew existed and even fewer ever saw, and Iwaizumi’s heart had, honest-to-god, skipped a beat. Or a couple of beats. 

 

Iwaizumi almost cursed, but he was ten years old at the time, and the most of his swearing was done in whispers, hidden away from his mother’s eyes with nervous giggles and furtive glances.  _ Frickin’ heck. How could I fall in love with a dumb-butt like him? _

 

Later that night, he asks his mother about love, and she laughs. “You’re too young, Hajime.” But Hajime disagrees. He’s not too young to know when the beating of his heart has aligned with someone else’s. 

 

It’s a good eight years of pining before the petals finally appear. Honestly, Iwaizumi is surprised they didn’t come sooner.  

 

He slogs through months in a daze. There’s no way he can tell Tooru, not without forfeiting the (painfully platonic) love of his best friend. He tells no one, and so no one knows. At least he  _ thinks  _ no one knows. Matsukawa gives him a Look after he begs out of practice for the third time in a week. 

 

“We can’t have our ace slacking off! How will we ever beat Ushiwaka now?” Matsukawa’s tone says  _ jokes! fun!  _ but his eyes scream concern for one of his best friends. Of course, Oikawa’s head pops up at that, and the setter’s eyes track his precious Iwa-chan carefully as he makes his way out of the gym. 

 

It’s a few days later when Kyoutani Kentarou, of all people, corners him in the locker room, bloodstained petals of a forget-me-not stuffed tightly in an angry fist. The anger in his gaze is refreshing. “Take care of it.” Iwazumi’s kouhai growls, and Iwaizumi thinks he sees a flash of- what is it? fear? sadness? empathy?-  _ something _ in Kyoutani’s eyes before he stalks off to find Yahaba.  _ Oh. Him too.  _ It’s hard to fathom Kyoutani pining after anyone, but then again, it was hard to fathom himself pining after anyone at first. 

 

Iwaizumi goes home, and he schedules the surgery. Luckily for him, his case is advanced.  _ It’ll be tomorrow _ , the receptionist tells him over the phone. “Thanks,” Hajime says.  _ Tomorrow is five years too soon,  _ he thinks,  _ and five years too late. _

 

Iwaizumi manages to avoid Tooru for the next day. He leaves the house before Oikawa can come to walk to school together, and he skips school and volleyball that day. His mother understands. It’s not every day that you forget your best friend and first love forever. 

 

He’s walking to the clinic. Everything reminds him of Tooru, from the cracked sidewalk where they used to play as kids, to the tree they planted in front of the Oikawa household. Tooru is everywhere with Hajime, because Tooru is nothing less than Hajime’s everything.  _ Hajime and Tooru. Oikawa and his Iwa-chan.  _ Iwaizumi can feel the vines tightening on his lungs, and he coughs, choking on his love for his best friend.

 

Iwaizumi pushes open the door to the clinic, his vision swimming. He barely gets out an “I’m Iwaizumi Hajime,” before he collapses on the threshold. The last thing he feels before blacking out is swirling regret in the pit of his stomach.

 

He fades in and out of consciousness. The first time, there’s loud yelling. Too loud. They’re trying to  _ get him some help!  _ and  _ hurry, he doesn’t have much time left! _ Iwaizumi almost wishes they would be quiet. Everything is cold, and he just wants to sleep. Why won’t they let him sleep?

 

The second time, there’s a bright light shining in his eyes. He can’t breathe, but for some reason he isn’t worried. His head is spinning, but when he sees Oikawa standing behind the blue-gowned people who surround him, his world stills. “Tooru…”  _ I love him. I love him. I-  _ “Tooru, I love you.” He speaks to hazy figure of his best friend in the back of the room. He can see the beginnings of a smile, but then there’s some frantic whispering in the background, something about the patient being awake, and a gloved hand pokes him with something sharp and he fades away again.  

 

There’s a brunet by his bedside when he wakes up for the last time. He’s beautiful, and his smile is relieved and genuine and painfully honest. “ _ Hajime _ ,” he breathes out, once, quietly, a sigh filled with the feeling of home. Hajime was almost certain that there was something missing, that there was something  _ he  _ was missing. 

 

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”   
  
Brown eyes widened, and Hajime felt strangely empty, numb, dull. There was a tense silence, then- 

 

“Haha, Iwa-chan! What a funny joke to play on the great Oikawa-san!” Somehow, Hajime knew exactly where to look, from the tightness around Oikawa’s eyes to the infinitesimal tensing of his shoulders. Hajime almost wanted to reach out to this perfect stranger, to comfort him, but there was something in him that had been dampened, forever extinguished and left to rot.  

 

Two months post-operation, whispers fly around the school. Iwaizumi-san hasn’t looked this scary since the basketball team called him “a great player for someone so short”, they say. Hajime-kun doesn’t accept any confession letters anymore, they say. Maybe Iwaizumi has forgotten how to be happy, they say. Maybe he’s depressed.

 

But Hajime simply doesn’t care. 

He remembers getting the surgery. He remembers waking up. But he doesn’t remember who he used to love. He doesn’t remember  _ how  _ to love, because he’d loved  Tooru with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his life, and without the missing piece of his heart, he couldn’t find that feeling anymore.

 

Tooru cannot figure out why his Iwa-chan will not respond to him. 

“It’s almost like he doesn’t even know me anymore!” The volleyball team keeps quiet. They had seen how broken Iwaizumi had been. They knew exactly why Oikawa’s Iwa-chan won’t respond to him. 

 

Hajime was missing the most integral part of himself, the part that could love, because he had fallen too hard too early. His love had forever been intertwined with the gleam of chocolate-brown eyes, alien conspiracies and bug-catching in the summer, shit-eating grins and over-exaggerated pouts. But that was all gone now, and Hajime was left loveless. 

 

(He was figuring out that it was okay to be loveless, though. He had met a certain pudding-head setter online and a certain red-haired ball of sunshine in real life, and he had become fast friends with both of them. It was nice to be able to talk to people about not feeling love in a world where love was so universally glorified.  It was nice to not feel so alone. )

 

Of course, he doesn’t regret getting the surgery. There’s nothing to miss, nothing to remember. Nothing to regret, just the twisted roots of a love gone wrong, the missing piece of a shattered heart, the dying petals of a forget-me-not. 

 

Once upon a time, Hajime would have cared .

 

Things are different now. 

And Hajime simply cannot care.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

(It’s been a year since Iwazumi’s surgery. A brown-haired, brown-eyed boy sits, alone. Even in pain, he is beautiful. He’s coughing. Fear shoots through his whole being, and he reaches up, slowly, slowly. His trembling fingers grasp at something, something soft and delicate. He looks at it uncomprehendingly, and suddenly he’s not feeling much of anything. The brown-haired, brown-eyed king stands up, eerily blank, and walks away. The petal sits on the floor where he dropped it, mocking.)

  
(It’s a truth universally known that Oikawa Tooru has always been beautiful. His pain is the most beautiful of all.)

**Author's Note:**

> heyyy y'all it's ya boy i'm back and better than ever! i'm still on my angst train, and i'm still writing as terribly as ever! i'm sorry about this i rly do love these boys i just... have a lot of pain and not a lot of ways to get rid of it. it's chill tho i like writing. i didn't really feel this work as much tbh but it's done now and u gotta do what u gotta do lmao.


End file.
